Why do so many men turn bad...?

[Destinysdaughter]

Was just thinking about this, May be simplistic but was wondering why so many men end up being rapists, paedophiles, DV abusers, stalkers etc?

Is it something in their family background, being a victim of abuse themselves, conditioning, or something else?

Discarding the question of how many bad eggs there are in each sex, I think it's about what normal people do, what normal people think is acceptable behaviour.

In some societies honor killings are more accepted than in others (even the name implies this). In some having sex with a sleeping woman is moving from grey territory to "out of order" territory.

It's not about the psychopaths who transcend social norms regardless, it's about the social norms and what they allow people to think is acceptable.

And I suppose that's what feminism is all about. It's not about targeting individuals, blaming them or excusing them, it's about looking at the norms and saying they're weighted against women.

Sure. But in the context of postulating an experiment to determine whether difference between females and males are innate or a product of their social environment, the fact that a gender neutral environment is impossible is highly relevant.
Okay, Helen. How about I rephrase it to say, I strongly suspect that, were it possible to create a gender-neutral environment, it could be shown that males and females have different traits?

Does that pass the test?

Lumela

Not the test of practicality, no. It's an unknowable. The answer you are seeking is inaccessible by any experiment you can design or suggest.

I think it's easy to say that men are more violent than women but it totally ignores that by the time we reach adulthood we've had decades of socialisation.

I had a terrible temper as a child but I learnt that fighting meant that I was the one who was held responsible (because as a girl I should know better) and even before puberty I was not as strong as the boys so I stopped lashing out. I also quickly learnt to take responsibility for my actions as I wasn't allowed to shift the blame.

I still occasionally have flashes of white hot anger (fairly high testosterone levels if my hairy arms are an indicator) but my instinct is to look inwards at why I'm angry, not outside to find the cause. I cannot remember the last time I even raised my voice, and it's the lessons I learnt in infants that keep me in check.

middle class men tend to think that because they've got a degree and a high status career, they know fucking everything. Even though they know fuck all about anything outside the subject they studied and their careers.

Ha! so very true..
Middle class "professional" men are the worst for knowing everything, and not even noticing that you might know anything at all, let alone more than them.
I definitely don't get patronised by working men as much, although i had assumed that was because I am Northern and working class-ish myself. Perhaps not.

I do think testosterone has a lot to do with why bad men do bad things, plus the lesser expectations on men to control their anger.
Bad women are out there, but the bad things they do don't tend to be as violent.
I also agree with whoever pointed out that women turn abuse inwards, and men outwards. I think that, as women, we are well set-up for self hatred anyway, so if abused as children will self harm/overeat/drink etc whereas men will express their hurt and pain outwards at other people.
I also think women are well trained in feeling helpless, and powerless at times and can mentally process the times when they have been made to feel that way.
If a boy grows up feeling powerless the humiliation of that can be a very dangerous catylist.(sp?)

No, Helen, not the test of practicality. The test of being a reasonable, though theoretical, comment.

Your full phrase:

"so it will not surprise me at all if someone can produce some research that shows that children raised in an entirely gender neutral environment end up with, on average, slightly different traits depending on if they are girls or boy"

You implied that the research might actually be something that could be produced. My point is that it can't.

If you are now saying your point is theoretical, then that wasn't clear from your first statement.

Hope that's clear now. I'm done.

I would have thought it was clear that my second statement replaced my first. I take the point that the experiment postulated in my first statement can't be run. I hope you can take the point my rephrase makes this clear: 'were it possible'. I even put it in helpful italics.

I am a man, and it pains me to admit that the vast majority of the bad things in the world are done my men. Serial killers: almost always men. Sex criminals: almost always men. Genocidal maniacs: almost always men. Terrorists: almost always men.

Is this because there is something different about the male brain - a violent tendency all men are born with that can be activated by environmental triggers? Or is it because men are taught by their society that they are entitled to go around raping and murdering and terrorising and serial killing? If so, why do lots of men not go around raping and murdering etc? And why do the minority of women who do bad things do bad things?

I have lots of questions but no obvious answers.

My tentative conclusion would be that people do terrible things simply because they are bad people and have the power to do so. So far men have had more power than women, so they have done most of the terrible things. Maybe if women were in charge they would do terrible things too. After all, Theresa May is arguably proving herself to be a rather terrible human being at the moment. Though to be fair she hasn't bombed anyone yet. Thouhgh thinking about it, Margaret Thatcher did.

I don't know to be honest. I'd like to think that I wasn't born with a bad brain just because I am a man. That's a rather unsettling thought.

Just as many women turn bad

Just as many women turn bad

Do you mean:

Just as many women turn bad as men?

OR

Many men turn bad, jut as many women do?

Because it's fairly clear that more men 'turn bad' than women. Mass shootings, genocide, sexual offending, child abuse and violent crime, very much the preserve of men.

NAMALT and all that jazz.

"Because it's fairly clear that more men 'turn bad' than women. Mass shootings, genocide, sexual offending, child abuse and violent crime, very much the preserve of men."

That is indeed true. But I wonder if that is because men have 'turned bad' or whether they are more demonstrably bad because they have the opportunity to be so.

The disparity is partly attributable to physical diferences. In other words, men are violent because they are physically endowed with a capacity for violence. But there must also be an element of socialisation because women are not as violent towards other women. My theory is that female solidarity is born out of necessity. If you are disempowered it makes sense to befriend and make common cause with other members of your disempowered class. Conversely men find common cause with their fellow male agressors. Then those identities become culturally embedded.

In essence I think it's very simple. The human race bring really quite awful in lots of ways, people abuse power because they can. Men have the most power - whether politically or just physically - and therefore they have more power to abuse. It really isn't much more complicated than that.

JosefK

I think your statement is correct in a way. I think men have a tendency to be more violent as it's a connection to the primeval past.

At the end of the day we are still animals, just slightly more evolved. But we still share that primeval part of the brain with other creatures. It the part that recognizes the smell of wood smoke, the rotting smell of death. The fight or flight reflex.

I believe that men's brains are perhaps more violent In The primeval part as, just like mail lions, chimps etc.....the hunter. Female brains are the gatherer.

I don't agree that women would behave the way men have if they had power.

The evidence is that where women have power, they behave more collaboratively and co-operatively with other human beings and do not in fact, use their power and resources for self-aggrandisement and to exploit other humans in anything like the degree men do.

Charities who distribute funding in developing countries, have learned this. If you put women in charge of the funds, they will ensure that the community benefits. If you put men in charge of the funds, they will ensure that only their immediate family and allies will benefit.

If you want your project to go ahead as you have envisaged, you need to ensure that men don't control the money, but that women do.

In societies where women are more equal (there are a tiny number), abuses of power are not as great as in most societies of the world where men have a disproportionate level of power.

It may be very comforting for men to reason that if women had power, they would behave as men do, but that's not actually borne out by the evidence. Women behave differently.

Females hunted too in primitive society. And men foraged.

There simply were not enough people to divide the tasks along the lines of if you had dangly bits you did this and if you had other bits, you did somethign else.

"The evidence is that where women have power, they behave more collaboratively and co-operatively with other human beings and do not in fact, use their power and resources for self-aggrandisement and to exploit other humans in anything like the degree men do."

That's not true as far as I can tell. In power women are a mixed bag. Some of the few female political leaders that have existed so far have been as ruthless and nefarious as men. Elizabeth 1? Margaret Thatcher? What do you think Marine Le Pen would be like if she became the French premier?

Indeed, look to Theresa May at the moment.

In my own experience of working in large institutions my female bosses have been not much different from my male ones. Some have been fantastic and others have autocrats and bullies.

For what reason do you think women would be any different in power? That's a strange idea.

Oh I know. On a thread about why so many men turn bad, let's talk about women being bad! Novel idea

Devi, in the majority of relationships men hold the balance of power. Therefore their actions have the potential to cause more damage.
This doesn't mean women can't be bad too, lots behave equally abusively but like it or not convictions are overwhelmingly of men.

It was sarcasm alfie! I'm a bit fed up of derailers on this kind of thread. Sorry, it wasn't appropriate

DeviTheGaelet, AskBasil said:

"The evidence is that where women have power, they behave more collaboratively and co-operatively with other human beings and do not in fact, use their power and resources for self-aggrandisement and to exploit other humans in anything like the degree men do."

I then disagreed with what AskBasil said, and explained why.

Is that a problem?

Maybe you disagree with what I said. That means you can respond to it in turn. And so on.

DevitheGaelet there is no derailing. The issue of how women behave in power is directly relevant to the question of WHY men are more bad than women. The women in power present a basis for comparison, demonstrating the abuse of power not to be an innately male tendency but the result of power structures that favour men.

If you disagree with this argument then I would be interested to hear what you have to say in response.

If I may say so, it seems a little unfair to accuse anyone whose view does not accord with your own of 'derailing'.

I believe that men's brains are perhaps more violent In The primeval part as, just like mail lions, chimps etc.....the hunter. Female brains are the gatherer.

Except that's rubbish:

video.nationalgeographic.com/video/male-female-bci

Titled:

Female lions (lionesses) do all of the hunting in a pride - the male lions tend to step in and take any spoils of victory.

I believe the accepted term is 'evo-psych bollocks'

Ah sorry Devi, that'll teach me not to read the thread properly before posting.